The entire right side of the laptop case was missing it had been ripped off the side of the notebook. Needless to say my jaw hit the floor. In 15 years of doing this kind of work I can't remember seeing many laptops that had ever been thrashed the way this one was.
As I let loose a barrage of words that you would normally see edited to look like @!#$ and enough to make a group of truckers or sailors blush. Just as this is happening in walks the user and luckily for him I did not have any items capable of inflicting severe bodily harm within arms reach. As I took a moment to do some quick breathing exercises and regain my cherub-like demeanor I looked at the user and sort of calmly asked, how did this happen? I couldn't tell you exactly what the user said because the steam pouring out of my ears seemed to have created some much needed white noise. I cut the users story short by blurting out "you destroyed this laptop"!
The user then preceded to inform me that the laptop is not destroyed because it still works. I think it was one of the few times in my life was speechless. I asked how with 1/5 of the laptop missing you could possibly argue that it is not destroyed? He looked me square in the eyes and said "that doesn't matter, can you fix it"? I proceeded to laugh so hard I think I might have peed a little. No I didn't fix it but we did give him a new laptop and I did keep the old laptop as a trophy!
Just for the record in less then two years the same user has gone through 5 laptops, 7 blackberries, and 4 bluetooth headsets.
So I guess being in IT is like being a parent... Nobody ever knows how item x got broken, the person that uses it all day long has never done anything wrong, and you get to hear every excuse in the book. So please, pardon my attitude. =)
Eric
